Garmin may have just confirmed it's working on a smart ring, whether it meant to or not. Then the proof quietly disappeared.
On August 12, an entry appeared in Indonesia's telecommunications certification database listing a device with the model name CIRQA SMART RING, brand GARMIN, in the "Fitness Product" category. By August 13, that entry was gone.
If this was a typo, it's being handled in a strange way. Typos get corrected. This one got deleted.
What the filing says
The certificate comes from Indonesia's official DJID / e-Sertifikasi database, the radio equipment register that products must clear before they can legally be sold in the country. Garmin News first spotted it. The details:
- Model name: CIRQA SMART RING
- Certificate number: 125338/DJID/2026
- Date: August 12, 2026
- Applicant: PT Garmin Indonesia Distribution
- Country of origin: Taiwan
- Category: Fitness Product
One detail worth noticing: "CIRQA SMART RING" sits in the model field itself, not buried in a free-text description. And it appeared the same day Garmin certified several other products there, including marine and diving hardware. That makes the ring entry look like part of a routine certification batch, which is actually more convincing, not less.
Then it disappeared
On August 13, Gadgets & Wearables confirmed the listing had been removed from the database. As they point out, if someone had mistyped "CIRQA Smart Band" as "CIRQA Smart Ring," you'd expect the listing to be corrected rather than withdrawn entirely.
Removals like this happen for a few reasons. Companies sometimes request takedowns when a filing leaks ahead of a planned announcement. Sometimes entries get re-submitted under corrected information. Either way, the deletion makes this more interesting, not less.
Garmin itself has said nothing. Its Indonesian site still promotes the existing CIRQA Smart Band, and the company has not announced any ring product.
Two years ago, Garmin said rings weren't worth it
Here's where the timing gets fun. At the 2024 Garmin Health Summit in Prague, two senior Garmin executives publicly explained why the company would not build a smart ring.
Vice President of Fitness Joe Schrick and Senior Director of Health Engineering Scott Burgett argued that the wrist was simply the better location. More power budget, more LEDs, more sensor real estate, and better signal quality, especially at rest. Rings were comfortable, they conceded, but watches were the stronger platform for health tracking in every way that mattered, including profitability.
That position now looks at least two years out of date. Even at the time, though, Garmin's own reasoning left a door open: sensor miniaturization keeps improving, and a ring using Garmin's existing sensor playbook was always plausible.
Why the CIRQA name matters
Garmin didn't invent a fresh brand for this. It reused CIRQA, the screenless tracking family it launched in July with the $199.99 CIRQA Smart Band, which carries no subscription. We spent a week with the band in our Garmin CIRQA review if you want to see how that first product actually performs.
Reusing the name is a signal in itself. Garmin's original CIRQA trademark filing used broad language covering body-worn electronic sensors and physiological monitoring, not just wrist devices. At the time, that read like standard legal boilerplate. In hindsight, it reads like a family plan.
A ring also fits neatly into how Garmin already sells CIRQA. The band is designed to work alongside your Forerunner, Fenix, or Edge. A ring would do the same job from a finger: continuous sleep, HRV, stress, and recovery data feeding into Garmin Connect while your watch handles workouts and GPS. If you want to see how the current screenless options compare, our CIRQA vs Whoop vs Fitbit Air breakdown covers the field.
That pairing is exactly what a chunk of Garmin's own community has been asking for. In Reddit threads about CIRQA, several users say they want Garmin data on the days they wear a mechanical watch instead. A ring solves that problem more completely than a band ever could.
What a Garmin ring would face
The smart ring category is crowded and established. Oura owns the premium end. Samsung's Galaxy Ring has massive distribution. RingConn and Ultrahuman compete hard on price, and neither demands a subscription.
Garmin's advantages would be the obvious ones: the Garmin Connect ecosystem, training and recovery analytics that athletes already trust, and (if it follows the CIRQA band's lead) no subscription. Garmin also wouldn't need to build much new software. Sleep tracking, HRV Status, Body Battery, stress, and skin temperature already exist in Garmin Connect.
The hard parts are the same ones every ring maker faces. Battery capacity is tight. Optical heart rate during exercise is unreliable on a finger. And Garmin would need to decide how much of CIRQA's training functionality even makes sense on a device with no screen and no buttons.
What we don't know yet
- Price: The CIRQA band launched at $199.99. A ring could land near that or higher, depending on sensors and battery
- Battery life: Oura manages four to seven days. Garmin needs to match that to be taken seriously
- Launch timing: A single certification usually precedes a launch by months, not years, but there is no confirmed timeline. A Bluetooth SIG qualification or an FCC filing would be the next breadcrumb to watch for
- Subscription: The CIRQA band has no subscription. Garmin would be smart to keep it that way, but nothing is confirmed
The Bottom Line
One government certificate is not an announcement. But "CIRQA SMART RING" sitting in a model field, filed by Garmin's own Indonesian distributor alongside a batch of real products, is hard to explain away as a clerical error. Especially now that the entry has been withdrawn instead of corrected.
Garmin spent 2024 explaining why smart rings weren't worth its time. Then it launched a screenless tracker family in July 2026. If the CIRQA Smart Ring is real, the wrist was never the endgame. It was just the first stop.